Sunday, March 30, 2008

New Directions: Wall sculpture, small sculpture

I think it might be fun to add a new line to the things to sell and eventually do that only. I like things for the house. Wall sculpture, hangings, garden sculpture. There's just so much jewelry and not so much original art for the wall. Not sculptural things, anyway. I am going to start this week.
I've started making a picture frame for a show I am going to be in next month. I have to frame a piece of jewelry in a 12"x12" frame. Since I use a lot of copper, I am covering and extending a nicely shaped frame I found in a garage sale yesterday, but it's too small. I'm cutting out the copper in four mitered pieces and hammering each piece to give it texture. then nailing them to the wood frame with tiny little brass escutcheon pins. I've gotten two sides done and it's coming along pretty well. Then I think I'll put an aqua patina on it . It's a pretty large expanse of copper to leave as is. I can see this as a start to the wall sculpture thing. The frame is the primary interest, then put a small assemblage in the center. I'm folding under the edges of the frame to give it more stiffness. I think this metal I'm using is about 22 to 24 gauge. I can think of a lot of ways to decorate future frames. Etch, hammer more, but that's really exhausting. I think I could buy molding to make a base for it so it would have some curviness. I would like that more than just a boxy thing...

Other materials I'm thinking about are :

concrete patch....like one I did in a Penland class. Put a little mirror on it and some ceramic for a little mosaic and strips of copper I swirled around and just the edge showing.

Hardware cloth as a base, larger squares. Repeat elements on it.

CLOCKS!!! Like the woman I did at Penland. It was a little sculpture. Slate base, copper tubing legs, copper tube face and wire hair and face. a black square of counter top sample. clock mechanism. It was so cute. I should look for a picture of it.

Mosaics as one element. especially for yard sculpture.

Collect more found objects. I need to find some junk yards. I don't want to do anything too large that would be hard to tote around or ship.

Tagua nuts: I've got to get some ideas for carving them. They're like ivory, so nesuke comes to mind. I should go google that.

Themes to consider.....primitive/jungle, animals with people, make smaller elements that can
be combined. Like the black "egg" as a seed pod with foliage around it. I wonder where Madalyn gets her brass leaves and stuff. I need to google again and also look at the metal books.

Well, this is a starting point. I'm doing this form my own use but I guess it helps to see how people work, so if it helps anyone, good.

7 comments:

Kirsten said...

I think there is a real market for small wall and table art, especially in the $50 to $150 price range.

Red Hen (dette) said...

Good luck with your new venture!

Duffydesigns said...

thank you both for your comments. I felt like I was talking to myself. I haven't really gotten into the blogging...

Aileen Clarke Crafts said...

Hi Duffy, just added a link to you through my blog.
Your new ideas sound great.

Red Hen (dette) said...

You obviously spend more time making things than blogging about them. Did you have any luck experimenting with photographing your work? How is the sculptural work going, you haven't posted any here or on flick-r. I'm interested to see what you come up with.

ArtPropelled said...

I enjoyed your stream of thoughts. Much like a page in my idea book. Please tells us more about your new work. I would love to see photos.

Bonhomie said...

Your work is spectacular!! I'm sure that I'll learn a lot from you.....I appreciate artists who share the thought process behind their craft!